Discussion: 2017 US Junior National Team Control Challenge

Orienteering USA’s Junior National Program announces the 2017 Control Challenge, a fundraiser to benefit (and challenge) the athletes of the Junior National Team by pledging money for each control point athletes navigate to in meets and training before JWOC, the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Tampere, Finland this July 9 – 16.You are always welcome to donate to Orienteering USA via their web page:http://orienteeringusa.org/support...but this makes it a little more fun.

The Rules:If you remember the 2016 challenge, you’ll see we’ve relaxed the rules quite a bit. You can pledge more money per control, or less, and the athletes challenged are not required to reach a certain number of controls before earning any money for the Team. Read on.

Challengers:1. You may challenge an individual member by pledging any whole dollar amount you choose per control, with a minimum of $1 each. You are encouraged to set a dollar limit at whatever amount you are comfortable with. This year’s JNT members are named here: http://orienteeringusa.org/news/2017/us-teams/2017...2. Multiple challengers may challenge the same athlete. Each control will be worth the combined total of the pledges from challengers. As one challenger’s pledge limit is reached, the total value of subsequent controls will be the sum of the remaining challenger(s) pledges.3. You may challenge the entire JNT, rather than an individual member. Again, the minimum pledge per control is $1, and you may set any limit. You may also challenge a certain group of athletes to reach a combined total. For instance, challenge all the JNT members who belong to your local O-club at a given amount per control, with all those members’ controls adding into the total, up to your chosen limit.4. Creativity in setting challenges is welcomed, within the limits of the person keeping track of all this. For instance, if you wish to encourage larger numbers of controls found, you may set a higher value for higher numbers of controls. e.g. $2 each for the first 100, and $5 each for #101 and beyond, again with any total limit you choose. If setting a threshold value jump like this, the minimum for the lower-value controls is $2. The threshold control (100 in this example) may be any number you choose.5. Challenges are made via email to control.challenge@orienteeringusa.org. Please include your real name and preferred contact method - email (preferred), phone, attackpoint message - along with the athlete(s) you wish to challenge, the dollar amount per control, your total limit, and any other stipulations you think of.6. You may challenge anonymously, if you wish. We’ll do our best to keep knowledge of your identity known only to those needed to administer the pledge. Just let us know in your email.7. We’ll also accept challenges in the form of messages on the AttackPoint Control Challenge thread, with the same information needed.8. If a challenge is deemed too complicated to keep track of, we’ll reply, asking you to revise it.9. While orienteers compete as individuals, the JNT will be training and living as a team, striving not only to improve themselves, but each other. We will not accept any challenge that could injure the cohesion of the Team, such as playing one member against another.10. The Challenge ends July 6th, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. We expect to provide a tally of your pledges met by the end of July 8th.11. Please fulfill your pledge via OrienteeringUSA’s website: http://orienteeringusa.org/support Click the Donate button to use a credit card (preferred), or see the instructions below the button for mailing a check. On the credit card page, check the box for “Team USA: Junior Team” and in the text box below, type “Control Challenge.”

Rules for the Athletes:1. Controls may be those you encounter in a meet or training. Besides O-flags, they could be streamers, pin flags, or features mapped and assigned by your coach, trainer, or club.2. No control may be counted more than once by the same athlete, even if it’s used twice or more on a course.3. Start and Finish do not count as controls.4. The map must be linked or posted to your AttackPoint log for the controls to count.5. The Challenge runs from May 1 to July 6th, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. in your local time zone. Some athletes who have already run in courses this May have begun earning money for the JNT without knowing it. Log the meet or training on AttackPoint, and submit the map. Include the date of any meet or training. Athletes should submit their number of controls and their maps as soon as possible after each meet or training. All submissions must be complete by the July 6th deadline.6. Individual athletes will not collect money for meeting their challenges. All proceeds will go the Junior National Program.

NOTES for Everybody:The $1 minimum is to encourage anyone who wants to provide symbolic support to their favorite athlete and have their name appear when the athlete reads the list of challengers.Proceeds from the Challenge will go the Orienteering USA Junior National Program, to reimburse athletes of the Junior National Team and Junior Development Team for travel, lodging, and food expenses during travel to and from major meets and other events, including the Junior World Orienteering Championships (July 9 – 16, 2017), but also major events in the U.S. and Canada, and to provide training and equipment, as the Junior National Program directors see fit and the budget allows.For those unfamiliar with orienteering, the athletes are accustomed to navigating to about 12 to 20 control points in a typical meet. The team members who go to Finland for the JWOC will be immersed in training for a couple weeks, and may navigate to hundreds of controls before the deadline rolls around.Local clubs, coaches, and trainers are encouraged to create extra opportunities for JNT athletes to score more controls, provided those controls are mapped. We want to help the Team members get more practice and fill more pledges, but don’t just line up control flags across a field. Make them navigate.

If you do use the donation form there, please make a notation that it's for the Junior Team. Thank you! (You can also donate to any of the other teams you care to support, or a general donation that the Board can allocate to greatest need. But this is a thread about juniors, so....)

Should we keep track of our total control count or will someone be doing that for us? Also would you like us to use the "# Controls" feature on AP when we log or is including the map enough on its own? Thanks for organizing!

Sending your control counts to the same address: control.challenge@orienteeringusa.org will make my life much easier than if I have to dig through all the athletes' logs in search of new activity every day. It doesn't take much if you've already posted the map to your log. If you right-click the '#' symbol at the top-right of any comment on AP, you can copy that one comment or post to you clipboard. Paste that into an email along with a number of controls, and I'll add it. I'll be making spreadsheets for each member that you can add to directly, cutting me out, except to supervise a bit. Still working on that one.I'm so new to AP that I hadn't heard of the "# controls" feature. Maybe next year I'll be educated enough to simplify your lives that way.

Challenges are starting to roll in! Andrea was first in line with her post on May 11th, above. Also, barb is challenging Keegan Harkavy of the JDT to the tune of a buck per control for all of May and June.

I'm challenging the COC members of the JNT: Siri, Tyra, and Caroline, to a combined total of 100 controls at $2 each.I'm separately challenging Caroline Sandbo to 100 controls at $2 each, then $5 each for controls beyond 100, to a maximum of $600.

Remember the $1 minimum allows a younger sibling to be a part of this effort without breaking the piggy bank. It may not make the JNT rich, but it'll allow a kid to participate, reminding the athlete that the whole family's rooting for him or her.(We like bigger challenges, too.)

You know what would be helpful? If one of you, on the blog or here or everywhere, posted a succinct list of all the cool places you'll be and things you'll be doing for this summer trip. Like, I have a vague feeling you're all running Jukola, but it would be cool to know exactly what's up, so fans can follow.

With some team members training here in Finland, others still in the States, and Julia & Tyra at WOC in Estonia, we're pretty split up. If you want to see how the control points have been piling up, here's the directory of spreadsheets for each athlete:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-S3SWYeWScnRWQ3...

If you tried to follow the link to the folder in the post above and found only Tyra's spreadsheet, that's because some dummy with my initials didn't bother to test the link before posting. It's fixed now. Click the link and see how many controls your favorite athletes have been hunting down.And thanks, Izzy, for catching my mistake.https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-S3SWYeWScnRWQ3...